Warning: You are likely going to stone my blog page after reading this article, thereby damaging your screen, causing you to hate me for the loss you used your hands to incur. So beware before going ahead to read.
Firstly, let me burst your bubble by saying yesterday, 16th March, 2015, was not Mother's Day. I'm really sorry to break the news this way, but truth is sometimes bitter. Yesterday was Mothering Sunday, celebrated by Catholics in UK and Ireland, not Mother's Day. Anyway, moving on...
I got home from church yesterday, and proceeded to the kitchen to fix a meal for myself. While dicing the carrots, my mother came to the kitchen and said jokingly. “You did not even wish me happy mother’s day.”
I said “Ehen.” In my mind, I was like
“you too?” lol. So I said “okay oooo, happy mother’s day.”
I was surprised because I have never said happy mother’s day to my mum. Please, don’t stone me, I promise you, I don’t hate my mum. It’s just that we were not raised with the mother’s day consciousness in my family, thereby causing my surprise.
I am therefore going ahead to blame the whole thing on social media. Lol. Yes, while some people blame Goodluck Jonathan for everything, including the fact that they accidentally cut their thumb in the kitchen, I blame social media for everything.
Ever since social media blew up, during every mother’s day, everyone puts up DP about how their mothers are the best in the world. Mother’s day is now more celebrated than in the past, such that my non-mothers-day-celebrating mother has now bitten the bug.
Back to the conversation. My mother now goes
“Or didn’t you celebrate mother’s day in your church?”
I said “I don’t know, I was with the teenagers all through.” This was not exactly true because I entered the main church briefly, and they asked all women to stand up in church, and sang ‘sweet mother’ for them. Also, in teens church, they asked every female to stand up, and we clapped for them.
“You are even supposed to buy me a gift to celebrate mother’s day.” she continued.
“Really? But you don’t buy me gifts on children’s day.” I said. “Am, I not a child to you? All these mother’s day and all other days are just holidays.” I said, making no sense, but wanting to cover my inadequacies as an inconsiderate daughter.
“But you used to get holidays every children’s day.” she said.
I just looked at her, and said to myself,
“see, you don’t get the message. Were you the one giving me the holidays? And really, I meant you don’t give me gifts every children’s day, so why the guilt trip?”
There are just some people who can never be sent on a guilt trip, no matter how hard you try, and I am one of them.
Now, contrary to what you might be thinking, I love my mum. She is really cool, lol. She is so cool that she freezes the sun (no one should steal my punchline, abeg). So let’s get that out of the way. She buys me things, I buy her things – well sometimes. I was just so surprised that the whole social media mother’s day thing got to her.
My mum reads my blog posts. I hope I don’t get into trouble when she reads this one. She might just send me packing, lol. The woman has really tried sha. Having a frank-talk writer, poet and spoken word artist as a daughter is really a burden no mother should bear, lol.
Now in Nigeria, we just like to follow trends blindly. Did you guys notice that last year, when mother’s day was celebrated twice, some people started getting confused, saying “didn’t we celebrate mother’s day few weeks ago?” Well, that is because different countries celebrate mother’s day on different days. Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, United Kingdom, and Nigeria celebrate it fourth Sunday in the lent seasons, and it is called Mothering Sunday. The real Mother’s day, is on 2nd Sunday in May, which more than 60% of the world’s countries, including United States. This is why most times, since we like do follow follow, we celebrate it twice in Nigeria. First we do it with the Catholics because of Social Media following, and then we later do it with the United States. (You can read more about Mothering Sunday and Mother's Day - Google is your friend). Readers are leaders of information and knowledge!
Fact: Do you know that the founder of mother’s day, Anna Jarvis, later in her life started protesting the celebration of mother’s day, becoming a major opponent because she felt it had been commercialised? In fact, she spent all her inheritance and the rest of her life fighting the celebration till she died.
Another thing, how come on mother’s day, everyone’s mother now becomes the best mother. Doesn’t that contradict the meaning of the word ‘best’, seeing that there can be only one ‘best’? Therefore, if everyone’s mother is best, it means no one’s mother is really the best.
Lastly I leave you with this meme I truly love, but did not create. Believe me, I didn’t write it. It goes something like
If everyone’s mother is the best, then who are the witches always flying at night, and doing bad things to other people?
I guess their kids are also out there telling us how their mum is the best mum in the world.
If you made it to the end of this post without breaking your screen, congratulations. But promise me you would not slap me when next you see me in person.
With that said, happy
mother’s day Mothering Sunday to all the beautiful mothers and mothers to be out there. And that’s excluding the witches. *Ducks jazz*
